


Rocking Chairs

by Shirokokuro



Series: If That Happens, I'll Catch You [6]
Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Batdad, Because it's shamefully fluffy, Bruce Wayne is a Good Parent, Cross-Posted on FanFiction.Net, Did I mention fluff?, Fevers, Fluff, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Like, Sickfic, There are cuddles, and happiness, bits of angst in here too but ya know ya girl can't help but sprinkle that stuff in, fluff definitely outweighs angst though
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-27
Updated: 2019-05-27
Packaged: 2020-03-20 11:53:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,759
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18992134
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shirokokuro/pseuds/Shirokokuro
Summary: Tim doesn’t understand rocking chairs.





	Rocking Chairs

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so I read protagonistically (the_protagonist)'s fic /And other things that don't get old/ yesterday, and it messed me up so bad (in a good way. It's good. I promise. My feels got utterly obliterated. 10/10) that I wrote this all last night to heal my wounded soul. I'm still heartbroken, but...at least I got to write cuddles?

There was an old rocking chair in the Drake estate. Tim remembers it well. The glow of the fireplace in the study would catch along its frame in winter, the sun in the summer sprinkling across handsome oak. Not too dark. Not too pale. Like sand that got kissed by a wave, the grains drifting in a chevron as if trying to chase the ocean.

The chair’s probably in storage now. Maybe catching dust, coated by canvas and neglect. Tim imagines it still would look the same regardless. It’d been around a long time before it fell into the Drake’s hands, he’d been told. Dad said it was an antique. Something from Pennsylvania, maybe Virginia. Tim’s forgotten by now. The specifics don’t matter at the end of the day. The chair itself is what he recalls, the sinuous spindles that bent around the back for ergonomic’s sake and the curl of each leg. 

Tim remembers being young and staring at it sideways from the floor, the scritch of the rug rough against his elbows while Mrs. Mac dusted. His neck would hurt from being pulled back—just to get a glimpse of the object from a different angle. 

Dad never sat in it. 

Neither did Mom. 

Tim tried a few times when they were away, slid comically down to the far back end of the double-scooped seat the moment he plopped down. It was too large to be practical for someone his size. That much was obvious by way the very design of the chair seemed at odds with him. The spindles dug into his shoulder blades any which way he turned, agitated bone and muscle. He even tried draping his feet over the armrests, starfishing sideways only to get a crick in his back from the position. The boy quickly deemed that way incorrect too.

_Maybe rocking chairs aren't meant for children _, Tim concluded one day, staring the furniture piece down over a bag of fruit snacks. It would be fine if that was the case. What bothered Tim was that he wasn’t sure how the chair was supposed to be used by anyone. It just seemed so horribly uncomfortable.__

____

That could’ve been the point of antique furniture, though. To be something you point to and spit out the history of like bric-a-brac or knick-knacks or something else that’s sole purpose is to crown a mantle place and fill gaps in conversation. 

__

Tim supposed he could still make use of the furniture piece somehow. Repurpose it to suit a child's whims.

__

That’s really why Tim remembers the chair. Sure, he didn’t get the premise of a rocking chair, but the design of it was interesting enough. He could scramble up to stand on the seat, imagine he was at sea and the chair was his boat. He’d pack on supplies for the journey, bits of blankets and pillows that he’d arrange like a bird building a nest. Some of the supplies he’d toss over in faked panic when a “storm” struck, a shift of weight here and there that Tim matched with the flicker of a flashlight to mimic lightning. To make it even better, small stars adorned the chair’s headpiece, carved in with decorative care. Tim would chart the ocean of the room by those constellations, would scribble in small islands in a journal, take notes of the navigation routes that carried his ship around the cape. At one point, he even had it that the whole boat was destroyed. He’d thrown a pillow down to the floor as jetsam then and made the jump to safety with a happy scream.

__

Next thing he knew, he’d washed up on an island that was the area rug. There were pirates on the other side of the sofa, and they’d search the beach at night in hopes of shanghaiing stranded sailors. The rocking chair quickly became what he’d hide behind when they came looking, the spindles bush bramble he’d cling to until they passed by like a rolling fog.

__

Tim can’t remember if he ever beat the pirates or not. He can’t even remember the name he’d given the island or the faces of the marauders he’d magicked up in his mind. It’s all been washed away by the ebb and flow of time, just like the rocking chair in storage collecting dust. Tim doubts he’ll ever see it again.

__

Still, he regrets never being able to ask Dad what the purpose of the chair really was...

__

* * *

__

 

__

Tim’s a bit confused where he is. 

__

No, not a bit. A lot.

He’s a lot confused. 

__

All he really knows is that it’s sweltering. The kind of heat that you sense on your skin when you’re sunburned so badly it hurts to move, hurts your muscles and your head. Tim’s certain the vague ache in his bones isn’t from the sun, though. 

__

There’s a combination of things that factor into that conclusion. He’s distantly aware of being wrapped so tightly in blankets it feels suffocating, his limbs pulled so close to himself that it's drawing threads of sweat out of his spine and others along the taut skin of his forehead. The teen’s certain a fireplace is on, too. He can make out the gentle hum of electricity through the walls and the air, can feel the way a ceiling fan redirects heat back to tease the hair around his face—the only part of himself that isn’t encased in blankets.

__

Tim almost cracks open his mouth to say something. (He’s certain there’s someone nearby.) The moment he thinks to, though, a cool cloth brushes along his forehead and the back of his neck. The gesture itself almost drops him back to sleep.

__

He still works his eyes open, just a smidge, just to see. His vision’s fuzzy enough to make contours halate, but the Robert Havell hanging above the fireplace informs him he’s in one of the Manor’s sitting rooms. His muscles instantly relax at that. (He hadn’t even realized he’d tensed up.)

__

“You still with me?” a voice rumbles. Tim's eyes drift back to find Bruce here with him. The man’s face is hovering just above him, skin russeted by the firelight, and the chips of his irises catch the flickering flames. His eyebrows are pulled together in concern.

__

Tim hums something from the back of his throat in reply, returns his forehead to what he now understands is the hollow of Bruce’s shoulder. It sets in that he must be sitting on the man’s lap, Tim’s knees bent around the armrest of a chair, but in all honesty, he’s too tired to protest, maybe too delirious. “S’hot,” he mumbles, sighing against the cashmere softness of the dress shirt the man’s wearing. Alfred always gets the best kinds. It feels like heaven against his skin. 

__

“I know,” Bruce sympathizes, pulling a slip of blanket tighter around Tim as if the teen didn’t just say he was sweltering. “You’re running a fever.”

__

Tim can believe that. His head’s swimming, and his breaths feel more along the line of pants. Bruce shifts a bit after a moment, rolls his shoulders as he reaches for something. Tim wonders what the man’s looking for, but then a thermometer’s worked under his tongue and that answers the question. Tim’s too tired to do much more than clamp his mouth around the device and wait for the beep. It comes after what feels like an eternity of fireplace whir and the feeling of Bruce’s lungs expanding against Tim’s neck. 

__

“Still high,” Bruce grimaces when he takes the thermometer out. Tim can’t decipher what number that indicates from Bruce, but it must be pretty bad as directly after he sets the device aside, Bruce returns his arms around him. The man pulls him just close enough to be comforting instead of smothering, fingers settling in the hair at the nape of Tim’s neck. 

__

Tim must doze for a bit after that, all tension melting out of his limbs. It takes a long time before his mind registers that gravity’s shifting in his chest. The teen writes it off for a second, but then he realizes his feet are swaying slightly from where they’re dangling off the armrest. It’s a weird sensation, like being on a boat rocked by waves. Only Tim’s in the sitting room at Wayne Manor, so that’s not right. Maybe his brain’s really going. He should probably mention that. Might need a hospital.

__

“‘ruce...?”

__

The man makes a gentle sound of acknowledgement.

__

Tim opens his mouth to explain his tipsiness only he’s not sure how to put it into words. He figures he should check to make sure it’s really vertigo (It’d be the most comforting vertigo he’s ever experienced.), wriggles an arm free from the blankets to push himself up using Bruce’s torso as support. The man seems concerned but lets him, wary eyes trained on the back of Tim’s head as the teen tips his attention in the direction of the floor. The haze clears enough for him to make out the stitches in the afghan slipping off his shoulder, but it takes longer for his vision to weave together enough to suss out the chair they’re in. He thinks maybe one of the legs is too short ( _Would explain the rocking._ ), although he already knows Alfred wouldn’t let that stand. Tim quickly discovers the swoop linking the bottom of the legs is by design.

__

“What is it?” Bruce asks behind him, voice quiet like he’s trying to put him back to the sleep with the question.

__

Tim muzzily rotates his head back, feels fatigue pinch his shoulder blades at the shift. “‘S’a rocking chair...” 

__

Bruce relaxes at that, ah's in understanding in that downy way people do when children state the obvious. The palm of a hand directs Tim’s head back into the man’s shoulder, and Tim’s grateful for the gesture; he's pretty sure his vision was gonna go if he kept upright another second longer. 

__

“It’s to help you sleep,” Bruce explains, resituates the afghan around Tim's shoulder with painful care. 

Another moment later and Tim’s vaguely aware that the chair’s moving again. His bangs brush faintly across his face in time with the sway, and even as he’s dropping off, Tim can conclude this is the most comfortable feeling in the world. Way better than the awkward chair he remembers being so confused by growing up. He’s not confused now, though, just tired and letting himself drift off to the realization. 

__

_ So that's what rocking chairs are for. _

__

**Author's Note:**

> “Halation” doesn’t have a verb form, so I’m pulling a Shakespeare and giving it one in the form of “halate.” (9o-o)9 Fight me, Merriam-Webster.


End file.
